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American LeMans
ALMS: First Look At Lola’s 2011 P2 Car
With the new budget-minded LMP2 class outlined by the ACO for 2011, Lola reveals their take on next year's chassis.
Marshall Pruett  |  Posted July 20, 2010   Hayward, CA
The sheer size of the new-for-2011 ACO-spec stabilization fin on the B11/40's engine cover will take some getting used to. (Lola Cars)
Lola, producers of LMP1 and LMP2 chassis for ACO-based sportscar racing, revealed their version of the new, lower cost 2011 P2 chassis today.

With a new class limit of €325,000 ($420,000), minus engine, or complete at €400,000 ($517,000), the B11/40 renderings reflect the need to greatly reduce manufacturing costs to stay within the 2011 cost cap. For the sake of comparison, a fully kitted 2010 Lola P2 Coupe, minus engine, costs just over $975,000.

To meet a new sale price reduction of more than half, the popular Coupe version of Lola's P2 car -- as used by the Dyson Mazda team in the ALMS, for example -- has been abandoned, giving the B11/40 a similar look, at some angles, to the B07/40 that preceded the B08/80 Coupe. The tooling and production costs to manufacturer a Coupe version of a prototype, as most manufacturers confirm, is prohibitively expensive.

Designed to accept a wide variety of engine solutions, the British firm expects production-based motors from Nissan, HPD, Toyota, Jaguar, BMW and Ford to be available for installation.

Lola's familiar nose treatment, with tapered dive planes, a central nose duct and rounded cockpit rollover structures makes use of the lessons learned from their prototypes offered through 2009. More recent design aspects -- seen at the end of 2009 in P1 and this year in P2 -- have been carried over, especially with their sidepod sculpting that falls away in front of the rear wheels, and the tidied rear substructure.

Continued use of the P2-spec narrow rear wing span can also be seen, along with the new-for-2011 stabilization fin on the engine cover. Intended to reduce the likelihood of a blow over at extreme yaw angles, the prominent fin also offers an impressive amount of new signage space for sponsor logos.

More details on the B11/40 are due out shortly.

Click Here to view the 2011 Lola B11/40 from other angles and to see how some of the shapes of previous Lola prototypes are reflected in the new car.


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